Kirwin collection arrives at the Royal Ontario Museum

It’s been six years since the first discussions about bringing geologist Douglas Kirwin’s renowned rock collection to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), and after a $3.7-million fundraising effort the collection has finally arrived – but the work is far from over.

"It’s organized chaos at the moment," says Katherine Dunnell, mineralogy and geology technician at the museum.

She’s referring to the 21,000 pieces in 783 containers that are stacked and scattered throughout the museum’s mineralogy in the third basement.

At 10 tonnes the Kirwin collection is truly massive. It’s comprised of 14,000 petrology specimens and 7,000 mineral specimens. "I don’t think we’ve ever received a collection this large in the museum," Dunnell says.

It’s not just the size of the collection that makes it exceptional, but the quality of the rocks, which Kirwin amassed during his 40 years working …

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